Keep tabs on your tabs.
Tab Out is a Chrome extension that replaces your new tab page with a dashboard of everything you have open. Tabs are grouped by domain, with homepages (Gmail, X, LinkedIn, etc.) pulled into their own group. Close tabs with a satisfying swoosh + confetti.
No server. No account. Tab data and saved items stay in the extension. The optional search bar can query Google, Bing, or Baidu (with live suggestions) entirely in your browser—no Tab Out backend.
Send your coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, etc.) this repo and say "install this":
https://github.com/Adlumen-ZM/tab-out
The agent will walk you through it. Takes about 1 minute.
- See all your tabs at a glance on a clean grid, grouped by domain
- Homepages group pulls Gmail inbox, X home, YouTube, LinkedIn, GitHub homepages into one card
- Close tabs with style with swoosh sound + confetti burst
- Duplicate detection flags when you have the same page open twice, with one-click cleanup
- Click any tab to jump to it across windows, no new tab opened
- Save for later bookmark tabs to a checklist before closing them
- Localhost grouping shows port numbers next to each tab so you can tell your vibe coding projects apart
- Expandable groups show the first 8 tabs with a clickable "+N more"
- Appearance — Light, Dark, or System theme (stored locally)
- Color palettes — Paper (default), Clay, Slate, Forest, and Noir, each tuned for light and dark mode
- Integrated search — search bar with Google / Bing / Baidu, debounced query suggestions, and results opened in a new tab (your Tab Out dashboard stays put)
- Startup dashboard — after each browser launch, the background script deduplicates extra Tab Out tabs in the same window (e.g. session restore plus Chrome opening another new-tab page), keeping one tab per window (pinned first, then leftmost). It then auto-pins a single Tab Out if none is pinned yet; if a pinned Tab Out is already restored, auto-pin is skipped. Work is done in sub-second retries with short internal time caps so nothing feels like a deliberate delay
- Tab Out tab hygiene — banner when multiple Tab Out new-tab pages are open, with one-click cleanup
- Optional local config — drop
config.local.jsbesideapp.jsif you need overrides (loaded only if present) - 100% local dashboard — open tabs and saved-for-later data stay in
chrome.storage.local - Pure Chrome extension no server, no Node.js, no npm, no setup beyond loading the extension
1. Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/Adlumen-ZM/tab-out.git2. Load the Chrome extension
- Open Chrome and go to
chrome://extensions - Enable Developer mode (top-right toggle)
- Click Load unpacked
- Navigate to the
extension/folder inside the cloned repo and select it
3. Open a new tab
You'll see Tab Out.
You open a new tab
-> Tab Out shows your open tabs grouped by domain
-> Homepages (Gmail, X, etc.) get their own group at the top
-> Use the header search (optional) with your chosen engine + suggestions
-> Click any tab title to jump to it
-> Close groups you're done with (swoosh + confetti)
-> Save tabs for later before closing them
Everything runs inside the Chrome extension. Saved tabs and preferences are stored in chrome.storage.local. Search requests go only to the search / suggestion hosts you select (Google, Bing, or Baidu). Results load in a new tab; Tab Out itself is not navigated away.
| What | How |
|---|---|
| Extension | Chrome Manifest V3 |
| Storage | chrome.storage.local |
| Sound | Web Audio API (synthesized, no files) |
| Animations | CSS transitions + JS confetti particles |
| Theming | CSS custom properties + color-mix per palette |
| Startup state | chrome.storage.session (cleared when the browser exits) for one-shot pin / dedupe windows |
MIT
Tab Out was originally created by Zara. Upstream project: zarazhangrui/tab-out.
This repository (Adlumen-ZM/tab-out) extends that base with the appearance, palette, integrated search (new tab), startup tab merge + pin behavior, and other polish described above. The shipped extension version is the version field in extension/manifest.json.